


Amen

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Big Love
Genre: F/F, Miscarriage, Mormonism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:14:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted by piperrhiannon, "prophesy"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amen

You meet her for the first time at a picnic. She brings fried chicken and biscuits and corn casserole and sweet tea and your dad makes you try the grilled asparagus. (Ben spits it out in his hand.) She takes you by the greasy hand and says Come on, let's swing, and you wonder if her dress will poof up in the wind and everyone will see her underwear. (You tell Ben she's probably wearing the special kind. The kind you're supposed to wear, but don't. Anymore. He says Shut up.)

You get really high on the swings, kicking your legs. From the air, your mom looks tiny, and Teeny looks teenier, but your dad is standing tall, arms crossed. Like a totem. And you know you shouldn't, because she's tired, but you shout Look, Mom, and jump from the highest swing yet, wiggling in the air for the perfect landing in the grass.

Nicki's dress is soft, next to you (you thought it would be stiff), finding you laughing. She smiles at your dad, and he touches her shoulder.

God watches you all the time. He saw when you spilled Teeny's bottle and blamed it on her, even if your mom believed it. God saw you before you were born, when you were with him, up in the stars and the planets.   
Sometimes, if you close your eyes, you think you can remember. Being there.

Your mom doesn't get better, after Teeny. And Nicki stays, some, at first. She walks through the house like a life-size statue of something you've seen in history books, her long skirts sweeping around corners, whispering something you wish you knew. Or wish you didn't. Her voice is strange, soothing Teeny to sleep, asking your mother where she keeps the shortening.

You go to school and come home, help with dinner, watching her tight braid move up and down while she stirs the pot.

It is predestined, your dad says. God knew that it would happen this way. He knew that Eve would fall, tempted, tempting. Knowing herself, finding herself naked. He knew the flood would come, he let it. This is their flood, but this is also their glimpse of land. Your mother sinks into her skin, and Nicki glows. Your father sits down and touches your hand, your brother's. You may not understand this now, but what we are doing is important.   
We are called.

You go to school and come home. Your mother sleeps, fitfully. Wandering the house, sometimes, wrapped in a robe and her own arms. You try to tell her about your day, about the boy who called you pizza face because you got your first zit, but her smile is sad and she touches your hand, and hers is cold. You huddle in the kitchen with your books, hiding in plain sight.

And sometimes, you talk. You betray your sleeping mother and think that the stranger could be beautiful, maybe, if she smiled.

"What was it like, being the daughter of a prophet?"

"What is it like, you mean?" She has a way of clutching the baby like a possession. Something she has won, and you think, maybe, she has.

"What is it like, then. Being his daughter. Being a Grant."

A high scoff, like a horse being startled. "Wonderful." As if you won't believe it, a tinge to the word, shoving through others to get to the front. You wonder if she dreams about the stars, if she thinks about the time before this one when they were with God.

"But you left that. To come here, and help." You turn, and look. You want to see her face.

"I did." Her reply comes slowly, her hand stilling on Teeny's back.

She dresses you for the ceremony. You don't need help, you never have, but she wants everything to be perfect. When she is done with your hair, you can't feel your face, but you let her, knowing her strong fingers tuck your mother in at night.

*

Her hand is the same color, pressed tight, gripping, as your thigh, drained. You look at the inside of your eyelids, rolling through the pain, seeing flashes of dark burgundy and blue and when you open them, your eyes, your legs, she is still there. Here. And you don't know this face of her's. It is as much a stranger as yours has become. You expect a thousand things.

God has known you before you were born. He has seen everything, all of this. He let this happen.  
Instead, she reaches up, falling back on her heels, and touches your face with her thumb. She is warm, and your face is wet.

I'm sorry, she says and you touch her neck just to hear a heartbeat that isn't your own.


End file.
